Directing a Scene

First, I had to decide what I wanted to do my scene on. I wanted it to be something I was interested in and could invest the time I needed into it. I chose a scene from The Big Lebowski and began to work on what kind of look I wanted to achieve. I wanted a fairly dimlit scene with hard shadows on Mr. Lebowski and soft light on The Dude. I rewrote the scene, changing a couple lines, and started to map out what kind of shots I wanted and where I wanted to place cameras and lights. This plays an extremely important role and without this kind of pre-production you will be lost when you get on set. I chose an easily accessible location and talked to my DP about how we would light the two actors opposite a desk and what kind of camera angles we would use to portray the feel we wanted. Directing the actual scene was no stressful. My DP and I knew what we wanted. The hard part was moving lights until we were satisfied and trying to get enough takes to where the dialogue would flow coherently.